The Long Way Home
by InnocentGuilt
Summary: It took a while, but BJ finally made it home. BJ/Hawkeye, slash


Disclaimer!: I don't own MASH. It's a simple as that; becauuuuuuuse…my mother was only two when this show started. Seriously, as much as I'd like to say it, you just can't own a show before you're born. You know it's sad but true.

A year after they all returned home from Korea, BJ received a letter from Boston. It was odd, considering the only person he knew lived in Boston was Charles and the man had done his best to disclaim the entire camp once he got back to the states (However, he was failing as BJ had heard account from his kind old C.O., Sherman Potter, that he and Margaret were having a small but growing relationship). He knew a few other people were from Boston, but that was by name alone.

The envelope had no name on the front of it. Just a return address. However, no matter how sneaky he tried to be, Hawkeye could just not mask his penmanship. He felt a real smile splitting across his face as only Hawkeye's letters and phone calls could make him smile these days. And without hesitation, he tore into the letter, reading over the lines with joy, giddiness, and a swelling in his heart that he knew he shouldn't still have after a year away from him.

_Beej, _

_I've finally returned back to Bean-town (Saying Bean-town just makes me want to call up Charles and yell it into the speaker). I'm not sure if I ever got around to mentioning it, but I used to have a practice out here before Korea._

_I finally believe that I'll be able to live apart from my father again as long as I call him every night and visit him once a month. Suddenly, I'm reminded of my first year in college. The first year away from my dad was the hardest year of my life. After Korea where I was never alone, and living with my dad in good ol' Crabapple Cove, I'm not really sure if I'm prepared to live in this house again on my own (I had my own house too. Bet you wouldn't have believed that.). _

_But Dad, being the wonderful parent that he is, basically said, 'enough molly-coddling. Get out and make a difference.' He didn't use those words per say. He was nicer about it. He said to me, "Ben, go back to Boston, or you're going to know what it feels like to get a whoopin' at thirty-three." Ah, good old dad. I missed him so…and miss him now, and I've only been back in Boston for a week. _

_And speaking of such a category, the 'I yearn for your conversation face to face' category that is, I miss you, too. And don't just think that I'm writing that as an after-thought. As you well know, I've been having withdrawals from your horrid jokes for these passed many months. I saw someone with a horrible moustache just a few days ago, and I almost asked him how Erin and Peg were. _

_And while I'm on the subject, how are the light of your life and the apple of your eye? You sent me a picture of Erin in your last letter. I know you worried how it would affect me after than last month in Korea, but I'm getting over it. I keep her picture in my wallet now (I have a wallet again. Oh boy! Oh _

_boy!), when I look at it, I think I'm getting better at living with the bus incident. She's a cute kid, by the way. Really. Next time you take pictures of her, you should send me a larger copy so I can keep it in my living room, and while you're at it, send me a picture of you too, if it's not too much to demand. In fact, if you're up to it, why don't you just deliver the picture yourself?_

_Now that I'm back in my old place, I have a spare bedroom that you could use. It's not much but it's really nothing. I can't say I'm a fabulous host, what with my job only just being re-established, but it would be nice to talk about Frank and not have someone say that what was done to him was terrible and I should pity the man. I'd even talk to Frank himself if he didn't say he wanted pity. _

_I've got to go now, Beej. The sun rises early over here and the sandman has threatened to drop me from his route if I'm not in my bed and thinking of sugar plums by ten o'clock every night. _

_G'night Beej._

_P.S. I've enclosed a copy of my house key. I have two more here, but not having had to deal with keys in over three years, I fear I may lose them both soon. Keep it in a safe place, that way if I lose my sets I'll know where my third is._

He didn't sign his name. But he never signed his name in his letters to BJ. It was almost like he forgot to or that he was imagining that he was actually speaking to BJ when he wrapped up a letter. He always said, 'G'night, Beej,' or 'See ya, Beej,' or 'Talk to you later, Beej.' He never signed anything like he had signed to his father. He never wrote a simple, 'Your best friend, Hawk,' or 'Your war-time fling, Hawk.'

He smiled grimly at the thoughts and memories that brought up in his mind, and rubbed his upper lip, now sans of his moustache, which he hadn't told Hawkeye about. He, then, began reading through the letter again, doing his usual read-between-the-lines as he always did, since Hawk was paranoid that his wife would read it and have a heart attack if he put what he was really feeling down on paper. Even if she did manage to find any of the letters from Hawkeye, she wouldn't be able to read what basically amounted to chicken scratch. BJ had spent the first six month in Korea taking the written Hawkeye course. Charles to this day still couldn't read it; Colonel Potter had problems reading it. Only he and Margaret could read it without any troubles.

_Beej,_

_I think I'm stable enough to be on my own again, and even if I'm not Dad says I am. I want to call Charles to keep me company. I don't like being on my own anymore, but I'm not a child and I have to get used to it one way or another._

_I've been here a week, and already I want to go back to Crabapple Cove. I really want to talk to you again. I hate being a different person here and having no one around to make faces with me when I say, 'Ferret Face.' I hate being a different person period. I keep seeing you everywhere, too. _

_Tell me about what's going on over there, how Peggy and Erin are. I don't have anything to keep me entertained over here. I'm about ready to join the 'thumb-twiddler's decathlon.' Tell me more about Erin. That'll keep you busy for at least two pages. _

_Come visit me soon. I miss you, for all the right and the wrong reasons. I have a spare bedroom, if you want to keep everything platonic here in the states, but if not…_

_I've got to finish this letter before I get too carried away. _

_I'm still too stubborn to say it, BJ, still too stubborn to say it, write it, or even think it. But I love you._

_P.S. This is my key. Don't make yourself a stranger if you don't have to._

He sighed as he reached into the envelope and pulled out the key, staring at it before reaching under his shirt for the dog tags that he didn't feel quite…_ real_ without anymore. He pulled the chain off over his head and opened the clasp at the back sliding the key on before shutting it, and sliding it back on.

It was a week before Erin's birthday, a year later, when the first package from Hawkeye ever arrived from his grudging mailman. He opened the letter, leaving the box by his feet, and began to read around Erin, who was sitting on his lap and staring at the box with all the curiosity any almost four-year-old would.

_Beej,_

_The box is for Erin. I know her birthday is coming up soon. It isn't much, just a bunny, but I remember your last letter when you said she threw a tantrum because she couldn't have a pet rabbit. I figure it's the best I can do. Write me back and tell me if she likes it. And give me a call before the eighteenth. I'm supposed to be giving a speech at a University nearby for a friend's class. I want to know how it sounds. I'd ask Charles, but he ridicules the way I talk, and my friend from the University says he's sure whatever I have written is fine, but I'm not so sure._

_I've got to go to work now._

_Talk to you later, Beej. _

He put the letter down, not bothering to read between the lines, because it was second nature to him by now to read between the lines as he read the letter at face value.

Erin looked up at him expectantly, asking, "Daddy, wha's in de box?"

"You'll see on your birthday," he said with a smile.

Her petite little face lit up with joy. "I's for my birthday?" she asked excitedly. "Wad is it?" She reached for the box greedily, but he stopped her.

"You can't open it 'til your birthday, sweetheart," he said with a small chuckle. He set her on her feet and picked up the box, taking it down the hall to his office with her trailing behind him, walking on her tip-toes as if somehow that would enable her to see what was in the box. He took it into his office and set it on the desk, away from where she could see it, even though she lost interest the second she set foot into the room.

While she wandered around the room, looking at all the keepsakes that were purely his—some coils and bolts from the still in Korea, a few pictures of the gang before they were back in the states, pictures of Hawkeye alone from the Polaroid they had been in possession of, basic knick-knacks that kept him connected to his family away from family—he opened the box from Hawkeye. The bunny was there like he had said it would be, and there was a birthday card, but along with both of these a picture of a bay, that Hawkeye had obviously taken himself on way of his trips to the shoreline.

His heart began aching to be there, not just for the shore, which he could easily look out the window and see, but for the man who had taken the picture. Hawkeye, who kept BJ with him no matter where he went through letters and phone calls and pictures. BJ would have found it unfair, but he knew he did the exact same thing back to him, with his non-stop talk about Erin, daily routines at work, and his poker games which almost no one will play with him anymore—he'd really gotten too good at bluffing in Korea.

He found himself longing to be in Boston, where all the fun was. Charles and Margaret were there along with Hawkeye. Those three were his main life back in Korea and though Erin could definitely compete with that…Peg couldn't. Not anymore, at least. He wondered how long it would be before the call in his heart became too much. Before he just couldn't stand the sight of Peg because she just wasn't Hawkeye. He would stay because of Erin, but he didn't know how long that would be good enough, how long that would be enough to ignore this…longing.

He put the picture on the desk, gingerly, setting it up against the picture of him and Peg, trying to ignore the way it covered his wife entirely. Turning around, he scooped Erin up and twirled her around the room, like she was a helicopter. She giggled loudly and held her hands out, emitting delightful squeals as she saw fit.

When the phone rang these days Erin would run down the hall yelling, "I got it, Daddy! I got it!" because she was a big girl and she could answer the phone for him.

So when the phone rang one night close to Thanksgiving a squeal of delight could be heard from the hallway and soon into BJ's office as she yelled, "I got it, Daddy! I'll get it!" She ran up to the side of his desk with her bunny that Hawkeye had given her trailing the ground and she stood on her tip toes as she picked the phone up off it's holder. She pressed it to her ear and said, "Hunn'cutt res'dence. Erin spicking." There was a pause and then, if possible, her face lit up even more. "Hawkeye! 'M good. Daddy took me with him to go pick out a turkey today…yeah. It's huge! I could bar'ly pick it up."

BJ, who had nearly jumped for the phone when his little girl had hollered his name into the room, now sat back in his seat and watched Erin converse with Hawkeye over the phone like they had known each other all their lives, and not just since he had started talking to her over the phone a week after her birthday. There was something about watching his daughter willingly talk to Hawkeye, when most the time she wouldn't talk to anyone over the phone, not even her grandparents. Her face glowed, she held her bunny closely to her chest, and her eyes sparkled in a way…it almost looked like she missed a man she had never even met.

He smiled as she sat down on the floor, looking at the cord to the phone cautiously as it stretched. She told him about her daily trips to the park, and how whenever 'Daddy' first got off work BJ would stay with her until dinner and play with her outside—"He's teachin' me how to play kickball!"—and how each night before bed, they would stay in BJ's office and do all sorts of stuff, when in reality she would play with her dolls and bunny, and he would do paperwork and bills. It made his heart swell to hear his daughter talk about him in such high regard.

The door to his office swung further open and Peg peaked around the corner to ask, "Who's on the phone?"

She noted Erin sitting comfortably on the floor playing with her bunny's ears and talking a mile a minute on the phone. A strange look came over her face at the sight, and it became even worse as BJ said, not taking his eyes off Erin, "It's Hawkeye, Peggy."

"Oh," was the clipped response he received, and he turned around to look at her, but all he saw was empty doorway. He sighed and shook his head. However, before he could go about hitting himself over the head as to what could possibly be wrong with her now—they weren't exactly as happy with each other as he had imagined they'd be when he returned home—Erin stood up and said, "Well, I guess I'll le' you talk to Daddy now…Okay, love you…Bye, bye."

She smiled and held the phone out to BJ, and BJ almost didn't even notice. When she told Hawkeye that she loved him, it had sent all sorts of images flying into his head. It was almost too good to even imagine…

"Hey, Hawk," he said his voice taking on a dreamy quality. He watched his daughter sit down with her bunny and begin playing with it. "How are you?"

BJ came home from the office one February evening and a suitcase and a duffle bag were by the door. Confusion etched his face, along with dread, because neither of those bags were Peg's; they were his. He hadn't been planning on going anywhere, either. He walked further into the house to see Peg sitting on the couch doing needlepoint with a stoic look on her face like he had never seen before.

"Peg," he began quietly. "What's with the bags?"

She didn't look up from her work as she said in the same clipped tone she had begun to use anytime Hawkeye's name was even mentioned in passing, "You're leaving."

He scoffed, disbelief hitting him as hard as a rock. "I'm leaving?" he asked, with a doubtful smile.

"I figure it's for the best," she said with a shrug. "You're not really here anyway. Always off in your head…no. You're not really here. You're someplace else." With each word she uttered, she tugged on the string she was using at the moment harder and harder.

BJ knew what she meant. He knew she was talking about how often he was with Hawkeye in his head, because really, ever since he had returned home, he had been with Hawkeye; his body just wasn't strong enough to follow his heart home. He knew that, but to have it end like this? He wanted to at least talk about it. "Peg…"

She threw her needle work away from her and turned her eyes up to glare at him, vehemently. "Get. Out," she spat at him.

He took a hesitant step back and another, intending to follow her orders right until he heard Erin from the hall, "Daddy?" She came bounding into the living room with her bunny that Hawkeye had given her in her arm and a happy smile on her face right up until she saw her mother's face. She looked at Peg, rebuked, and then carefully began sidling towards her dad. When she was beside him she said, "Hi, daddy! How was work?"

He didn't get to answer. He didn't even have time to get the lump that had worked its way into his throat at the prospect of leaving his little Erin down back into his stomach, before Peg said in a cold tone, "Kiss your father goodbye, Erin. He's leaving."

She looked between her parents, clearly fazed, not at all, by what her mom had just said. She looked up at her father and asked, in her cute little voice that BJ was going to miss so much, "Are you gonna go get s'more hot choc'late? We ran out today."

"He's not coming back, Erin."

Her face contorted into confusion, before it fell and she looked at BJ with her big, blue eyes that were beginning to fill with tears. "You're leaving me?" she asked in a voice just barely above a whisper. "Daddy, where're you goin'?" she ran towards him, her had outstretched for him, but Peg caught her around the middle and held her back. It was at that point that Erin started screaming for him, yelling, "Daddy! Don't leave! Don't leave me!" over and over again, while struggling against Peg.

His wife glared at him, daring him to make a move towards Erin, daring him to make it any worse than it already was. BJ got the hint, and slowly, with more ache in his heart than he had ever felt in his entire life, backed out of the room. He could hear his little girl's anguish even as he stepped out of the house, even as he shut the door, and it took all he had in his soul not to just run back in and snatch her out of Peg's arms to sooth her. He through his bags into the back seat viciously, trying to ignore his daughter, 

who was yelling loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear, who was calling out to him so desperately…

Even with his car door shut, he could hear Erin yelling at the top of her lungs, "I wanna go with Daddy! Let me go! I wanna go with him! Daddy!"

He started the car, fighting back his own tears, and threw the stick into reverse pulling out before he did something stupid. He pealed out of the driveway, back onto the street, already knowing he was heading to the airport before he even knew which way he was backing out. He set off down his street, going slow for how completely_ pissed off_ he was.

He couldn't believe he was just letting Erin go. She wanted to go with him; he couldn't believe he had left her…

He looked into his rearview mirror, just in time to see Erin fly out of the house, dashing down the porch and out of the front-yard gate before he could blink. He slammed on the clutch and break, instantly and watched her in terror. She scampered down the road, nixing the sidewalk all together, leaving her mother in the dust, until she was on the passenger side, yanking the door open with all her strength. She struggled as she crawled into the passenger's seat with tear-filled eyes, a red face, and a bunny clutched closely to her chest. BJ stared at her sadly, and brushed her loose hair behind her ear.

"Erin, sweetheart, you can't go with me. You have to stay here with your mommy," he said, noticing the way her eyes welled up with even more tears.

She shook her head violently. "I don't wanna stay with her. I wanna go with you. I don't care where you go; I jus' wanna go with you! Please, daddy!" She began hyperventilating as she pleaded with him, "I'll be good! I'll listen to everything you say…I'll clean m'room every day…I'll stop getting my dresses all dirty when I play outside! Daddy, please, anythin', just don't leave wifout me!" She threw herself into his arms, dropping the bunny on the floorboard, crying into his chest, and clasping her arms around his neck.

He wrapped his arms around her just as tightly, pulling her from the passenger seat into his lap and stroking her hair. He kissed the crown of her head countless times, murmuring soothing words to her that he was sure she couldn't hear over her sobs. They stayed like that for God only knew how long, but thankfully it was a quiet street and no one was driving, because he was sitting in the middle of the road with an idling car that had its passenger door wide open. After a few a while though, after Erin had finally begun to calm down enough to where he might be able to explain why she couldn't go with him, one of the backseat doors opened. He looked back to see Peggy putting a suitcase and a little traveling bag in next to his own suitcase and duffle bag.

She walked around the car, to the passenger seat and sat down. She had tears rolling down her face as well, and when she looked at them her face seemed to contort into pure pain. Her hand reached out and touched their daughter's hair mournfully, as she said, "Call me when you get to wherever you're going."

He stared at her in shock, but she nodded reassuringly as she backed out of the car and shut the door, moving around again to the sidewalk. He looked down at Erin and said, feeling his own tears springing up again, "Okay, sweetheart. You can come with me." He loosened his grip on her, and slowly she crawled back into her own seat. When she was settled, bunny in her arms and seatbelt around her little body, he rolled down the window and said to Peg, who was still standing by the car on the sidewalk, "Thank you."

She sniffed and said in the same cold tone she had used with him in the house, "I'm doing it for her."

He nodded, and took off again, throwing his car into the correct gear and chugging down the road.

BJ slipped the chain from over his head, taking the key into his hand.

He had arrived in Boston at three in the morning, and he and Erin had taken a cab to Hawkeye's house. The weather here was colder than he had expected, so he had to stop at a gift shop at the air port to buy the both of them heavy coats. On the drive to Hawkeye's, while Erin had been asleep, BJ had silently been worrying. He didn't know how Hawkeye would take his sudden appearance. Perhaps he would be with someone tonight. Hawkeye hadn't mentioned it in any of his letters, but two nearly three years was a long time to go without carnal pleasures. He should have called, but all the way there he just hadn't been thinking of it. He only wanted to get there. He only wanted to be home again.

The key slipped into the lock without a hitch. BJ smiled, to himself, and then to Erin, who stood beside him tiredly with her bunny in one arm and her little suitcase in the other. He turned the key to the right and was rewarded with the sound of the locks being withdrawn echoing through the quiet, frozen night. He pulled his key out and opened the door to Hawkeye's small house. He let Erin go ahead of him, and then picked up the two suitcases off the ground, following after her.

They stepped into the kitchen, Erin waiting for her daddy to come in and guide her. BJ relocked the door behind him and looked around. There was a door on the other side of the kitchen and an entryway to his left. He ignored the door, figuring it would lead to a garage or a laundry room—if Hawkeye even did laundry. He headed through the entryway, which led him to a small-ish living room in all sorts of true-to-form Hawkeye disarray.

"Erin, come on, honey. Sit on the couch. I'll be back in a second," he said, leading her to the couch in the living room was half covered by knitting materials, but, thankfully, no nudist magazines. She nodded and went over to sit on the couch, clutching her bunny close to her and resting her little suitcase in front of her legs. He smiled at her, and nodded, setting down the two suitcases and taking the duffle bag off of his shoulder. "I'll be right back, baby."

He wandered off into a hall he had spotted behind the living room. Hawkeye had said he had a guest room, probably for pretense if Peggy ever got hold of one of his letters. He wouldn't want her to think that they would share a room, or that Hawkeye was rude enough to make his best friend sleep on a couch. However, now it would be perfect. Erin could sleep there for the night.

There were three doors in the hallway, with a light emitting from under one. He opened the one with the light, hoping it would be Hawkeye's room and that the man would still be awake, but he found that it was only the bathroom. The next door, the one beside the bathroom, he opened slowly, knowing it could be Hawk's room and he didn't want to startle his friend too badly. However, it was the spare bedroom, clean as a whistle except for a few boxes that Hawkeye had yet to unpack as well as a few bags of wrapping paper. But the most important thing was the bed that was under the window, fully made with a few blankets down at the end, not folded but just kind of bundled there.

In a stage whisper he called out, "Erin, come here."

A few moments later, his little girl padded down the dark hall with her bunny and her small suitcase. He pointed into the room, and said, "You're gonna sleep in here tonight, honey. The bathroom's right here, with the light on. Wash up and get ready for bed."

Erin looked into the room precariously, maybe a little sadly. BJ had to admit, the room was a bit…cold, especially in the pale, winter moonlight that splashed in through the window. It was nothing like the room back in Mill Valley, which had been the epitome of little girl warmth, but for now it would have to do. He gave her a gentle push towards the bathroom and she went after a little bit of hesitation.

He waited for her to get ready, and when she came out he tucked her into bed pulling one out of the heap at the end of the bed and tucking it in around her. He gave her a hug and kiss on her forehead, and he told her good night. Then, he made his way out of the room, leaving the door open so that some of the light from the bathroom.

"I love you, daddy," she whispered right before he walked away.

His heart swelled the way it always did when she told him that, and he smiled back at her, "I love you too, Erin."

He then moved across the hall to the only room he had yet to enter. The room that must have been Hawkeye's.

BJ just stood there for a few moments, debating. He knew he should go in and wake Hawkeye, tell him that both he and Erin were there, but at the same time…they hadn't seen each other in three years. They had kept their friendship alive through letters and phone calls, and though BJ definitely had feelings for Hawkeye. Surely Hawkeye must have felt the same way too, if BJ read between the lines correctly. Yet, doubt clouded his mind. They had been in desperate times the last time they had shared a bed, a home, a life. Back here in the states would it be the same? Would it work the same way it used to? He wondered if perhaps he should sleep on the couch tonight. He had entered the other's house, without warning and now he was just going to enter Hawkeye's room?

The logical part of him kept saying, 'how rude!' However the illogical part of him, the part that had grown and swelled in Korea and even, if he thought about it, kind of sounded like Hawkeye said, 'yeah. Actually, I am.'

He turned the knob and stepped into the room, leaving the door open so he could navigate through the room that was every bit like he would imagine Hawkeye's room to be. Clothes were everywhere on the floor, dirty he supposed, because in the corner by a closet was a basket filled with unfolded clothes. There were books thrown around, wildly, along with magazines, though, strangely enough, still no nudist magazines.

BJ smiled as his eyes landed on the Hawk, who was curled up on the twin size bed that was positioned against the wall leaning on the edge of the bed, and threatening to fall off at any moment. It was a scene that he was familiar with from the Korea, when the cots had just been too small to sleep on your back or to roll over too far. He crawled over to the bed, maneuvering in behind his friend.

The bed was firm beneath him, comfortable, unlike his old bed with Peg which had nearly swallowed him on more than one occasion. It would have been a tight fit, if he hadn't still been envisioning the last time he had tried to crawl in behind Hawkeye, when they had both been sleeping on army cots that were barely bigger than a two by four. This was much better than anything that he had been in for the passed five years.

He leaned over and kissed Hawkeye's neck, grabbing his arm and shaking gently.

"Mmph. What is it?" he asked still mostly asleep.

"Hawkeye," BJ said quietly into his ear.

He stirred a little bit more picking his head up off the pillow. "Beej? Is that really you?" he asked, twisting his head to look over his shoulder. He smiled a very lazy, very tired, very Hawkeye-like smile. "When did you get here? When did you get rid of that disgusting moustache?"

BJ smiled back. "I'll have time to explain tomorrow…and for everyday after that."

His face showed confusion for a moment before it was masked by sadness for BJ. "What 'bout Peg…and Erin?"

"Peg told me to leave. Erin's in the spare room. It's not too much trouble, I hope?"

"Peg let Erin come here with you?" he asked with awe etching his words, he looked ready to make BJ explain everything right there at two o'clock in the morning. However, her yawned and his head drooped a little towards his pillow. He looked at BJ mournfully, looking as if he didn't want to sleep, but would rather talk the rest of the night away. He settled though, and said, "You're right. You will explain everything tomorrow," as he let his head fall back onto his pillow.

BJ laid his head on the pillow too, not caring that he was still dressed in his clothes or that just two days ago Peg, his once beloved Peg, had kicked him out. He felt like he was home.

Finally.

Months later, BJ and Peg had the divorce papers filled out and filed. BJ would have custody of Erin most of the year, letting Peg have her every summer, and switching back and forth for Christmas. He let her keep the house, and the car he had bought her, along with all the furniture. By June, all of BJ and most of Erin's belongings were in Hawkeye's house. It was a tight fit, mostly because Erin had a multitude of things, and they overflowed her small room—which they had painted and decorated to her liking after their first week there—and fell into the living room and sometimes the kitchen.

BJ found work with Charles, who hired him both grudgingly and immediately—"I can not tell you some of the incompetents I have forced myself to work with these passed three years. You may not be as good as I am, but you're certainly better than_ O'Connell_." Since then, most weekends, after playing at the park with Erin, they would all go over and torture Charles, because Margaret, now Winchester, relished having them around again, and the Winchester family had taken a rather unlikely liking to them all.

Hawkeye and BJ had picked up right where they left off, as if they had never been apart from each other. They joked during the day, as always, though now they had to cook, and clean—optional if you talked to Hawkeye—and during the night they whiled away the hours basking in the delight the felt to be with the other again. They kept their relationship a pretty well maintained secret, for a while even from Erin, until she had seen them kiss one night before bed.

Life was as close to perfect as it could get.

Erin came bounding into the kitchen, where Hawkeye was leaning over one of the counters with a mug of coffee—_real coffee_—hanging lazily from his hand. She smiled as she walked up to him and pulled on his purple robe. Hawkeye looked down and greeted her with an affectionate, "Morning, sunshine." He pulled down a cup for her, this having become their morning routine, and she dashed off to pour herself some milk.

While she was doing that, Hawkeye poured himself another cup of coffee, asking over his shoulder, "What do you want for breakfast this morning?"

She 'hm'ed and 'ha'ed, taking a sip of her milk, and all around making it look like she was really thinking about what she wanted. Then she got a coy smile on her little face and asked, "Can I have pancakes?"

Hawkeye smacked his lips, looking out into the room unseeingly as he copied her in pretending to think about it. He sighed, "Do you know how to make pancakes?" he asked innocently.

She huffed, "No..."

"Neither do I," Hawkeye said, feigning disappointment. He snapped his fingers in the air, and then adopted a sly grin. "Your daddy does, though."

A grin to match his spread across her sun-kissed face, and she giggled. "I'll be right back!" she yelled to him as she disappeared in a blur of blonde hair and pink pajamas. He could hear her laughing excitedly as she ran into the living room, down the hall, and into his and BJ's bedroom. Hawkeye pulled another 

coffee cup down from the shelf and made the other man a cup of coffee. Then, not five minutes later, BJ came stumbling in, robe halfway undone and his house shoes only halfway on, with Erin bouncing after him. Hawkeye smiled at him coyly as he came closer, glaring at Hawkeye as if he were the bane of all existence.

"You're evil," was all he said as he reached passed Hawkeye to grab the coffee the darker-haired man had made for him. He pressed a quick kiss to Hawkeye's lips as he moved away, already starting to collect the ingredients for pancakes.

Hawkeye and Erin sat at the table while BJ cooked breakfast, throwing glares at the two of them every once in a while for being woken so early on a Saturday. When breakfast was finished and everyone had a plate of pancakes—mostly syrup with a mushy pancakes thrown in somewhere on the plate—they sat down at the table, Erin chattering away about the dream she had last night. BJ and Hawkeye listened studiously, Hawkeye laughing at some of the bizarre things her mind came up with at night.

It was nothing special really, just a typical breakfast, but it was perfect.

It was home.

A/N: Please, oh, pretty, pretty please tell me what you thought of this story. I thought it was sort of sappy whilst writing it. Anyone who reads most of my stories knows…I don't do sappy. But it attacked me and would not let me be until I wrote it! So please review.

InnocentGuilt.


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